


Kane Richardson Must Die

by babyhulk



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: All the misunderstandings, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cameos from every other player from the series, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Idiots in Love, JL cameos, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Obliviousness and Idiocy, Rated for language - just general swearing, Starring your favourite Aussie cricket boys, UAE Pakistan tour 2019, because obviously, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2020-09-23 05:00:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20334478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyhulk/pseuds/babyhulk
Summary: “Zamps,” he murmurs, blinking slowly, “is fucking gorgeous.”Zamps’ lamp-lit profile swims in and out of his vision. He watches one pale grey-blue eye gleam in the light from outside the bus until Pete bursts into a startled laugh beside him.Shit. Why had he said that.“Peter,”he hisses.Pete doesn’t listen. “Stoin thinks Zamps is fucking gorgeous!” He chokes out.“Tell me something I don’t know!” Maxi hollers from the back of the bus.“It’s those baby blues, you can drown in 'em!” Coults calls, shrieking when Zamps takes a swing at him.“He’s a pretty boy, innit?” Kane adds, grinning when Zamps scowls over the seats. "Pretty boy Zorba."Zamps is glaring through the embarrassed pinch to his mouth. Kane blows him a kiss. Marcus is glad they all find this hilarious, but fuck Kane for making that shy scowl appear on Zamps’ face.~Or, the one where Stoin is in love with Zamps, Zamps is in love with Stoin and they both think the other is dating other people. Somewhere along the way, Pete and Pat fall in love, Maxi is his generally lively self and Aaron Finch is hanging on by athread.





	1. How to be in love with your best friend (a guide to failure)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, this started back in March during the Pakistan tour in the UAE. We all remember these two morons and their shenanigans, starting with the hand-holding and coffee scrubs, and never really ending at all. They're basically married anyway, try change my mind. 
> 
> So have this monster of a fic that started off as a vague crack!fic where Stoin was jealous of Kane and Zamps was jealous of Pete, and devolved into an entire saga of misunderstandings, drama and general idiocy. The Pete/Pat crack!ship was not my fault, I was coerced, everyone blame Alex. There's another one in there but that ship is a surprise till Chapter 5. Also, I kept flipping back and forth on the title because like on one hand, it's a bit much if it shows up on a google search but also like it's meant in the most dramatic, least serious way possible so...I kept it.
> 
> Anyway, this fic is basically for everyone who put "someone pls write this" in the tags of tumblr posts. Hello. I wrote it.

It starts a little something like this.

*

He dresses for the Allan Border Medal like he’s being possessed by the spirits of gentrified Melbourne, white suit jacket, white shirt and bowtie, black pants, gold-rimmed glasses with a chain, ‘20s paper boy hat. He absolutely does not dress up for anyone else. No matter what Ben says. He doesn’t—

“You tryin’ta out-Zamp Zamps, or what?” Maxi calls as he walks past, grinning.

Ben Abbatangelo snorts beside him.

Marcus ignores that and spins on his heel with a smirk. “Nah, mate, just thought someone should show the rest of your boring tuxedo-ed asses what real fashion looks like.”

“Right, tell me if Real Fashion wants a matching walking stick, think my gramps has one that’ll match.”

It’s a scorching, clear summer day and the heat has bled over into the evening, but Marcus raises the umbrella in his hands, the last addition to his outfit. “I’m covered.”

Maxi rolls his eyes. Marcus thinks he gets away with that much because Vini is waiting for Maxi looking like a goddess in gem green and Maxi gets distracted.

Zamps turns up looking like a condensed Elton John and eyes Marcus head to toe with a glint in his eyes, gold-rimmed, burgundy lenses resting on his nose, earring dangling from his left ear and catching the light as it swings.

He steps forward, delicate fingers tugging at Marcus’ bowtie, setting it straight. The smile on Marcus’ face feels like it bursts from the bottom of his chest out, cheeks twinging as his eyes catch on all the little edgy details of Zamps. The swoop of his spun-gold hair, curled lips and sharp jaw.

A soft brush of fingertips above his collar before blue eyes gleam in satisfaction as they step away.

“Acceptable.”

Marcus tosses back his drink feeling victorious. Ben rubs his forehead.

Somehow that feeling of bubbling satisfaction stays under his skin even when he’s named the ODI player of the year. It doesn’t dim even when Finchy cracks up when Marcus shows up on the big screen. It has nothing to do with the fact that he kissed Zamps’ cheek five minutes before the award was announced. Nothing.

*

So maybe it doesn’t start like that. Maybe it starts years before that. Either way, Marcus is _dealing_ with it.

“So well,” his sister murmurs under her breath.

Whatever.

It might not start like that, but it goes a little like this. 

*

“Don’t be a fucking dick, Marc, give it back.”

Marcus holds the avocado up a little higher, stretching casually, grinning as Zamps glowers at him. “No, don’t think so.”

Zamps refuses to jump for it again. He has more dignity than that.

They’re in Zamps’ kitchen, a few days before they’re set to leave for India, attempting to make some ‘vegan-friendly’ snacks while a few of the other boys are out on the balcony, relaxing. 

“Stoinis, give me the fucking avocado,” Zamps hisses. His fingers curl around a table knife. “Don’t make me stab this through your dick.”

Marcus bursts into laughter but only tips up onto his toes, holding the fruit in question higher in the air. “You’re just mad you’re short, Zorba.”

The air seems to sizzle.

“I will hack off your limbs while you sleep.” Flashing eyes reflect the sun off the bright blue bowl on the counter. “Including your dick.”

Marcus slips onto the counter, swinging himself up with a quick hop, lifting the avocado a little higher. “That’s twice you’ve mentioned my dick, Zorb. A little fixated?”

Zamps’ furious expression flickers into exasperation and he pushes in between Marcus’ legs, levering himself up with a hand on Marcus’ thigh to reach up for the fruit. “It’s because you _are_ a dick.”

There’s not a lot of the English language left in Marcus’ head. His eyes are stuck on the sharp slice of Zamps’ jaw inches from his eyes, the hand pushing weight into his thigh, branding into the bare skin below the hiked-up shorts, and the knee that’s wedged itself right between his legs on the small sliver of counter-top as Zamps reaches for the avocado.

Marcus lets the fruit slip out of his fingers because he’s too busy studying the curl of Zamps’ hair behind his ear and trying to stop his brain from completely frying itself at how close Zamps is. He smells like chlorine and summer sunshine.

“Hey, guys, do you ha—_hooooly shit, _okay, that is not something I ever needed to see—!”

Pete’s exclamation and rapidly fading voice snaps Marcus into action, jostling Zamps enough that he has to jump off, and he does, landing fluidly with the fucking avocado held reverently in his hands.

“YES! Take that, you genetic freakshow.”

Marcus rubs a hand over his thigh, trying to brush away the feeling of Zamps’ handprint tattooed on the skin, and hopes to god he isn’t blushing as much as he feels like he is, face flaming hot. He clears his throat and pushes a hand through his hair.

“You realise insulting my perfect genes isn’t going to make you taller.”

“Shut up and get the tomatoes.”

When they eventually get the guacamole and nachos out to the group, Pete looks up and catches Marcus’ eyes with hard look, gesturing his head to the drinks table. Marcus drops his head back to sigh at the sky and follows him over.

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t beat around the bush or anything,” Marcus says, pulling the ice bucket towards him.

Pete pulls a beer out of the esky and shoots him a look. “You keep pulling his damn pigtails, Stoin, don’t think I don’t know what the fuck that was though I got the fuck out of there.”

For once, Marcus would like to have a conversation about Zamps without Pete telling him to be careful. But he has to relent, knowing Pete is just eternally concerned because Marcus refuses to keep his heart off his sleeve.

“I wasn’t…pulling his pigtails,” he mutters, petulant.

Pete snorts. “It looked a hell of a lot more R rated from where I was standing, let me tell you.”

“Fuck off, I just told him he was short.”

_“Stoin.” _

Marcus scowls and dumps a few more bottles into the esky. “Fine. I’ll stop teasing him about his height.”

“You’ll stop _flirting_ with—”

_“OI!” _Maxi’s voice rings over the balcony. “You two ladies done natterin’ on? Either tell us the juicy goss or get your sorry arses over here.”

Marcus is so grateful for Maxi in that moment, he drops another beer next to his almost-empty bottle and presses a smacking kiss to his cheek with a grin. “Always have time for you, Chompers.”

Maxi huffs, rolling his eyes, while Kane is shaking open a familiar black and white box. “Flattery will get you everywhere with me, Oil.”

Pete settles in next to Zamps and takes a long drink from his bottle. 

“Alright, remember, the dirtiest answers win.”

Cards Against Humanity always turns into a catastrophic mess, with any number of things that could potentially have their careers destroyed spilling forward in card combination.

Zamps’ eyes glitter across the way.

Marcus grins and reaches for a card.

*

“It’s cute, really.”

Marcus buries his face in his pillow and wants to disappear off the face of the earth. How could he have been so _stupid. _

“I can see why you like him, it’s that smile isn’t it, bloody adorable. He’s kind of pocket-sized for you too, which is precious.”

Maybe if he thinks really hard, he can shrink himself down to ant-size and run away far away from this conversation_._ _Why is this happening right now. _Oh yes, because he couldn’t keep his bloody feelings to himself.

“Get up, Stoinis, I’ve got research to do and you need a decent meal.”

Marcus groans into the fabric. “Leave me here to die.”

Maxi tuts. “How do you plan to impress Zamps with that attitude?”

“How do I escape this fucking conversation?”

A harrumph. “That’s rich, considering you just emoted all over the place and the whole world thinks you’re hitting that, that being Zamps. Well, it’s cricket, so maybe not the whole world but some of it…Least a billion people, if you consider India. Unfortunately, you’re not hitting that, though you obviously want to be, you sly dog.”

“I regret everything that led me here,” Marcus hisses, flipping onto his back. “And I hate you. In a murder kind of way.”

“You could never, you’d be lost without me, Stoiny, and besides,” the bed depresses as Maxi drops down next to him, “he could like you back.”

“Fat fucking chance.” Marcus mutters under his breath. He shoots Maxi a look that could wither the Amazon. “Are we twelve? _He could like, like you!”_

Maxi arches an eyebrow. “You’re not ugly and you could lift a bus. He thinks you’re _yum. _You have a fucking chance.”

“First, thanks, that really boosts my self-confidence. Second, that comment was a joke.”

“You’re absolutely welcome, mate. Not that you and your muscles need any help in the confidence department. And how do you know it was a joke? He could’ve literally thought you looked good enough to eat.”

Marcus lets his arms flop over his stomach and sighs. “He says shit like that to everyone. Does he even like guys?” He asks the ceiling. The ceiling is starkly silent.

“Dunno.” Maxi sighs, rubs an eyebrow. “Did you? Before him? Wasn’t this your whole gay awakening?”

“Bi, and fuck you. Stop being fucking reasonable, Glenn, I hate it when you’re reasonable about stuff that’s not cricket. It makes me uncomfortable.”

Maxi snorts, shoves him in the chest. “Get up, you loser. Ussie and Finchy are waiting, I’m fucking hungry, and you need to stop hiding in here because you kissed your crush’s fingers on live television while he was caressing your face for the drama of it all. Though I gotta say the blowjob joke from the commentary box was _inspired._”

Marcus cringes, the dormant flush rising in his cheeks at the blunt reminder that he had, in fact, kissed Zamps’ fingers on live television and the commentators had laughed at his expense. Watching the video back with Maxi peering over his shoulder had been torture, noting JL’s exasperated amusement, and knowing that the next presser would have _some_ question about their ‘bromance’.

He groans, rolling onto his side and pressing his face into Maxi’s hip. Maxi pats his back. “Please just kill me. Just stab me with the toilet plunger, I don’t care, just end it.”

“I’ll consider it if you come out to dinner.”

Marcus groans again and peeks up at Maxi. “Promise?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Stoinis, put on your damn shoes!”

*

A thing to know about Marcus is that when he is exhausted, his brain-to-mouth filter logs off, packs up and goes home to laze on the couch with a beer. Many of his secrets have been given away, not because he had a drink or five, but because he was so goddamn tired, he couldn’t get his mouth to stop talking and the _truth _had come spilling out instead of the lies he’d crafted in their place.

Maxi and Pete have pulled a few too many confessions out of him in post-match flights, bus trips, and hotel room hangs; Seb Gotch, memorably, hadn’t spoken to him for almost a week after finding out that he’d called him pocket-sized to Ricky Ponting’s face.

The IPL had been a disaster of shared rooms, competitive games of Never Have I Ever, and much of Marcus’ frustration at Maxi’s taunts fuelled into hot-eared embarrassment, vehement denial, and throwing poor David Miller in Maxi’s face and bolting in the opposite direction. Mitchell Johnson had been of little help in corralling Maxi that season. Johnno had taken one look at Marcus and told him that his ferocity is for the field, not his mates. Don’t poke the bear, he’d been told. Some bear.

Ultimately, Maxi knows way too much about Marcus, and the only thing keeping him at bay is that Maxi, underneath the cheeky bastardry and wayward innuendo, is actually a good friend. A good bloke. Sure, Aaron Finch probably knows most of his secrets, but Marcus knows that best mates don’t have secrets, like he and Zamps.

Not a single secret between them. How could they when they did everything together? Those coffee grounds don’t exfoliate his back by themselves. (He really tries not to think about that because having his hands all over Zamps had been a study in absolute self-control. Having Zamps’ hands all over him had just been torture of the highest degree.)

Of course, Marcus’…_thing _for Zamps is a whole different ball game. It’s not a secret if other people know, right? Just happens to be that none of those people are Zamps, that’s all.

It’s just never come up.


	2. Why Aaron Finch might become an alcoholic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The drama begins. Enjoy.

The night of game three against Pakistan, it’s early, barely gone nine p.m., and the team is finally packed onto the bus to get to their hotel in Dubai.

This is where everything starts to go wrong and Marcus wishes he could blame it all on Maxi. 

*

It had been a gruelling day. They had won by six runs. He’d been forced from the pitch early, Shah’s gruelling fast ball getting the better of him for a shocking two run score after clearing Ussie out for sixty two. The threat of World Cup selection had been hanging over his head since India, his run with the bat proving shaky in the last two matches, and watching the team hash it out from the bench had taken a toll.

But he knows he fucked up. He knows he had let his emotions cloud what he’d meant to be doing out in the crease. He had looked up and seen Kane making Zamps laugh on the giant screen, laugh so hard he was swaying with the force of it, and Marcus had torn his gaze away to the ground. Not long after, he was making the walk of shame into the dressing room, cursing his stupidity. Zamps had smiled quietly at him when he had come out to the balcony but Marcus had dropped down next to Ussie and kept his eyes on the field.

Their bowlers had been hammered in the death overs and as each of them had either reached ten overs or been a tad too expensive, Marcus’ stomach had sunk a little lower. The inevitable conclusion rumbled above his head, a storm cloud sinking dark and sinister.

And then Finchy had walked over, cementing his fate. He had entrusted that last over to him, with impending loss a dangling axe over their heads. Marcus had had to take a second to breathe, to scan the team, the field. Zamps had come sprinting over, ten overs under his belt, taken him by the arms and said _listen. _Marcus, pressure tense in his shoulders and a shake to his hands, had.

_You can, you can absolutely do it, _Zamps had finished off a short, resounding speech with that and squeezed his wrist. Those pale blue eyes had burned with absolute certainty under the flood lights. _You can, Marc._

First ball went for two runs. There had been a wide off his second ball, and with Pakistan needing sixteen runs off the next five, Marcus cringes as he remembers wanting to melt through the grass in absolute blood-curdling horror.

Finchy’s expression hadn’t wavered in the slips, he had just nodded, a silent _come on _in his gaze.

Zamps had flicked him a quick thumbs up and he’d taken a wicket off the third, the ball settling in Pete’s hands. The fifth had been a six and Marcus had watched, frozen, as the ball sailed over the boundary rope over long off. Eight off two. He had taken a deep breath, glanced around the fielders, pushed a few around, and run in praying for a miracle. The ball had flown high and the weight of it dropping solidly once again into Pete’s steady hands had loosened the tight knot at the pit of his stomach. The lone finger of the umpire in the air has him breathing out. 

Kez had thumped his shoulder, pulled him in for a hug. The impact of Shaun’s collision with him, with Finchy’s and Coults’, Maxi and Kane, is what held him up when his knees threatened to give way in the rush of relief. Zamps had curled a hand around his neck and grinned, wild and wolfish.

Eight off one.

Marcus had bowled the last ball with Zamps’ handprint seared into his neck and the fourth game a certainty.

They’d won the match by six runs and Marcus had never felt such colossal relief. Six runs was all that had stood between them and losing. JL had raised a victorious fist from the Aussie bench and he may have grinned a little too wide at Finchy’s enthusiastic thump to his back, the _well done, mate, _settling like a mantle across his shoulders.

Back in the dressing room, the first thing he had done was grab Pete by the neck and kiss him hard on the cheek_, _swinging them around in circles a few times until Pete clawed him away.

_Thank you, fucking—thank you. _He’d mushed the words into Pete’s face, unable to let go. _I love you._

Pete had laughed, face melting from a wrinkled nose into that half-cheeky grin, dimples deepening. He’d returned the sentiment, hands settling on his hips, affectionately kissing Marcus’ temple. _Yeah, you too, Oil, you too._

He drops down next to Pete now, several hours later, knees giving way, and melts into the seat.

Pete chuckles a little at him, though he too sounds like he could use a drink and a comfortable bed. “Tired?”

“Fuckin’ exhausted,” Marcus mutters.

“You saved the day, out there,” Pete says and it sounds like he’s smiling.

He cracks his eyes open to look at Pete but his gaze gets caught on Zamps who had just climbed into the bus. Marcus, exhausted down to the marrow of his bones and still painfully pining almost five years later, can only stare.

Zamps is bathed in the dim light of the bus, highlighted by the fluorescence of the streetlamps outside, as he climbs up the last few steps inside. The earring glints in his left ear, his hair half-dry after a shower, the small smile he gives Finchy as he walks past is tired but glows with the victory of the day, and when Coults jostles him from behind, the sharp glint of canines is radiant as he bites verbally at him.

To think he had started off the day posting a picture which still makes him flush hot, that kiss had seared into his cheek and burned into his skin when Zamps had pulled away with a grin. Zamps’ little smirk from across the table at the caption had made Marcus grin all the way to the stadium, even when Maxi had tossed an arm over his shoulders and said, _hey baby, _with a leer. 

‘Course, Kane flirting with Zamps all day had ruined all of that anyway.

In the dressing room, Marcus had turned from Pete to squeeze Zamps into a similar hug because his words had beaten steady in his blood through that last over but Zamps been sitting on Kane’s lap, an arm slung around his shoulders with Kane’s hand on his thigh, and Marcus had shoved himself away into the pile on the floor with Maxi, Kez and AT. 

He sighs heavily. 

Pete nudges his arm. “What?”

“Zamps,” he murmurs, blinking slowly, “is fucking gorgeous.”

Zamps’ lamp-lit profile swims in and out of his vision. He watches one pale grey-blue eye gleam in the light from outside until Pete bursts into a startled laugh beside him.

Shit. Why had he _said_ that. _“Peter,” _he hisses.

Pete doesn’t listen. Pete’s laughter just gets louder and louder.

The entire bus turns to Pete, who’s laughing like he’d been hit with laughing gas straight to the face, near hysterical. Marcus is too exhausted to stop whatever is about to happen and he relents, resigned to his fate.

“Stoin thinks Zamps is fucking gorgeous!” Pete chokes out. 

A chorus of laughter erupts around them and Marcus closes his eyes, letting his head drop onto Pete’s shaking shoulder. He would kill Pete tomorrow when his limbs didn’t feel like elephants had stomped on them and his head was filled less with Zamps’ smile and more with some idea of getting back at Pete for giving him away in his moment of weakness.

“Tell me something I don’t know!” Maxi hollers from the back of the bus.

It’s greeted by more raucous laughter, Kez tripping over a seat for laughing so hard, uncoordinated in his post-match adrenalin crash, and the silent-but-obvious resonance of JL’s amused exasperation.

“It’s those baby blues, you can drown in those things!” Coults calls, shrieking when Zamps takes a swing at him over Gazza’s head.

“He’s a pretty boy, innit?” Kane adds, grinning when Zamps scowls over the seats at him. “Pretty boy Zorba.”

Zamps is glaring through the embarrassed pinch to his mouth. Kane blows him a kiss. 

Marcus is glad they all find this fucking hilarious, but fuck Kane for making that shy scowl appear on Zamps’ face. It’s too cute for him to handle right now and he turns, knocking his forehead several times into Pete’s shoulder with an exhausted groan before settling there.

He lets the niggling grasp of sleep steal over him to counter the vague mortification and simmering anger he can feel settling in the crawl of his spine. Pete, still chuckling, pats his thigh.

“Sorry, mate.”

“Fuck you,” he grumbles.

*

Three rows in front, pale blue eyes glimmer as they shift away from a sleeping Marc as he pushes his face into Pete’s neck, subdued now though they had flared in delight as those words had echoed through the bus.

The scene from the dressing room still floats like a mirage in front of his exhausted eyes, of the near-kiss and tight, lingering hug between Pete and Marc, the sheer relief and the way Marc had _melted _into Pete, the barely audible declaration pressed into Pete’s cheek. _I love you. _Pete had beamed and kissed the side of Marc’s head.

Adam wonders when he missed that happening, wonders if anyone else had realised, if Finchy knows.

He turns away from the cosy two behind him then to stop the hollow echo in his chest and chooses, valiantly, to ignore Kane’s gaze boring on the side of his face. 

Maybe it’s for the best.

*

Marcus has a problem. That problem is Kane Richardson. _Richo_, if Zamps is to be believed.

Don’t get him wrong, Kane is brilliant, an incredible bowler and a great guy, nothing against him. But Zamps seems to have a thing for laughing at Kane’s jokes and Marcus cannot have that. Kane is not someone Marcus can compete against, not with the long history they have, not with the strength of the bond between the vegan hipsters of Melbourne.

Sometimes Marcus _really_ wonders.

Pete finds him lurking on the edges of the team gathering in the hotel lounge, nursing his fifth beer and scowling fairly obviously at Zamps’ full-bellied, doubled-over laughter at whatever the fuck Kane had said from behind that pretty grin.

Kane is too attractive to be flirting with Zamps, Marcus thinks. No. No, he _knows _Kane is too pretty to be flirting with Zamps. Because how the fuck is he supposed to keep Zamps’ attention when Pretty Boy Kane and his luscious hair is over there cracking jokes?

He really hates Drunk Marcus sometimes. Drunk Marcus is an asshole.

So Pete finds him lurking, scowling into his beer and being a general wet blanket pissbaby on a night he of all people should be winning the beer pong challenge he’d heard was happening in the team suite upstairs.

“Mate, what’re you doing in the shadows?”

Marcus manages to smooth out the wrinkles in his forehead before Pete can fully see and drags his gaze away from the flashing white of Zamps’ teeth.

“What?”

Intelligent, nice work, Stoinis.

Pete settles next to him on the couch in the corner of the hotel bar with a fresh drink in his hand.

“You’ve been hiding in this corner for the last half hour, mate.”

“H’ve’not.”

Pete snorts. “You’re a child. I know Kane’s playing with your favourite toy but you gotta stop…_pouting_. ”

“Not pouting. M’happy. Drunk.”

“So Kane’s definitely playing with your favourite toy. And if this is happy, I don’t want to see you sulk.”

Marcus wants to hate Pete but that cheeky grin gets him every time. He scowls. “You’re sulky,” He mutters. “Got no raisin-rea-need to be happy.”

Words are difficult. No one should be allowed to speak. Would make it harder for Kane to make Zamps laugh.

Pete makes a face at him, gestures around the hotel bar, an actually laughing coaching team, the light atmosphere. “We just won the third match in a row. You got two fucking wickets in the last over. Plenty of _reason, _that’s the word you couldn’t bloody pronounce, to be happy.”

“Shuttup_, _Peter _Step_-Stephen Patrick Hands Comb. Y’got too many names, Foot Brush. Name-hogger.”

Pete rolls his eyes. 

Zamps laughs aloud from where he’s leant against the bar with Shaun and Kane. Marcus slides a little lower in his seat, his face falls a little further, and something burns in his chest. The wickets he took seem a lifetime away.

“Hate him n’ his stupid face. Who’s he think he is, to be so hot…he’s so pretty, Petey…Richo’s mouth is too small, y’know, n’wonder he grows a beard, Zamp deserves better than Small Mouth…”

Pete laughs and chugs half his drink, setting the glass on the table in front of them. “C’mon, you idiot. You should get to bed.”

Marcus slings back the rest of his beer, wiping ineffectively as it spills out of the corners of his mouth, and pulls himself to his feet. His head spins, sending his vision whirling, and he narrowly avoids faceplanting into the low table in front of them because Pete has the sense to grab him by the arm, and throws the other around his shoulders to support his wobbling knees. The adrenalin crash which had shrunken beneath hot water and a coffee is making a vicious comeback with the added alcohol.

“You’re going to hate yourself tomorrow, man.”

He waves a noncommittal hand. Least he’ll sleep without dreaming about stupid Adam Zampa and his stupid pretty smile.

As they leave, all Marcus can see is Zamps’ bright grin and flushed cheeks next to a cackling Kane.

“Will you help me kill Kane?” He slurs into Pete’s shoulder.

Pete snorts as he shoves Marcus across the lobby, hastily scanning for cameras, and into an empty elevator before JL sees him getting weepy over Zamps and drunkenly plotting to kill a fifth of their fast bowling cartel. “Think we need him, mate, especially since Patty’s been rested.”

“Don’t. Coults n’ Joshie’re ‘nuff. Starcy n’ Patty too for the Cup. I like Starcy, he’s nice. Don’t need stupid…Richo.” He collapses against the cool steel wall, flushed cheek pressed into the mirror. “Oh, s’cold, nice…Eh, Peaches? A hitman? Poison in that…stupid ‘spensive coffee shit? Oh!—” He stumbles before Pete can grip him around the waist properly. “Mph, maybe, we can get a camel to _stomp _‘im to death. A stomp-able face with a small mouth.”

Pete turns his eyes to the ceiling and prays for strength, though he smiles rather helplessly when Marcus opens reddened, bleary eyes at him. “Bit of a jealous arsehole, aren’t you?”

“He plays for the _Renegades.” _

“A valid point.”

“Thanks, Petey. He’s an emeny-emny-anemone of the state.”

“It’s the same state, mate.” Pete rubs a hand through his hair and hauls him out when the elevator comes to a stop on their floor.

“Shut up.”

* 

Behind the bright laughter at Kane’s jokes there is a growing simmer of irritation but Adam tears his eyes away from the two conjoined figures making their way to the elevator, jaw clenched, and lets the chatter of the others distract him. 

*

Aaron Finch stares between two of his best players and throws back the rest of his whiskey in silent prayer for an end to this soap opera, raising his hand to signal the bartender for another.

He would take matters into his own bloody hands if this went on much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if this is fun or not hahahah I had fun writing, I'm just hoping anyone who's reading it is having fun too.


	3. Marcus Stoinis and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it continues. There's an issue with an esky. Shenanigans ensue. Also, forgive me for the health protocols I probably violated, it's not a serious head hit, I swear. Oh, and I've decided for fic reasons, that Zamps calls him "Marc". For reasons.

It’s the jackhammer in his head and a goddamn shrieking abomination that wake him up the next morning. Bright Dubai sunlight slants into the room through the crack in the roughly-closed curtains and Marcus groans, loud and unashamed, though it sends his ears ringing.

The abomination turns out to be his phone.

His head pulses with each amplified beat of his heart.

A quick fumble to switch off the grating ringing tells him it’s just past nine in the morning and he’s got four texts from Pete, one from Coults, and two missed calls plus a text from Finchy.

Shit.

_From: Pete the Rabbit _

_Remember I made zero promises_

_We have a net session at 11_

_Hope you’re alive _

_Your country needs you_

Marcus huffs. His head throbs and he winces as he replies.

_To: Pete the Rabbit_

_Fuck off _

_Breakfast? _

_From: Pete the Rabbit _

_Not with that attitude _

_To: Pete the Rabbit _

_Attachment: image [selfie of a pouting Marcus hiding from the light]_

_:(_

_From: Pete the Rabbit _

_Pest_

_Breakfast in 30 _

Marcus grins and opens Coults’ text from just past midnight, certain that the beer pong tournament must have a new champion.

_From: De Nile _

_Wiped the floor with AT and Maxi, cheers for sitting this one out _

He bursts into a laugh, immediately regretting it as his head pounds.

_To: De Nile _

_Legend. Lunch is on you_

Then it’s with a slight cringe that he opens Finchy’s message from fifteen minutes ago and immediately regrets everything in his life that led to this moment.

_From: Grinch _

_Pining and self-inflicted hangovers don’t excuse you from training_

Is it too late to jump off the top of the Burj Khalifa?

_To: Grinch _

_I’ll be there, Cap _

He’ll be there with bells on.

His phone bursts into a rousing scream and Marcus moans in pain as his head thunders, vision shuddering, cursing Pete for his foresight to set consecutive alarms every five minutes for an _hour_. 

Okay. So, no bells. But he will be there.

*

Pete meets him at the breakfast buffet half an hour later with too bright a smile and a pair of paracetamol. He ruffles Marcus’ hair as he hands them over when they sit down with a breakfast selection that isn’t going to destroy their nutrition plans. Marcus may sneak in several strips of fatty bacon because this hangover will destroy him without some grease in his system.

“Sleep well?”

Marcus throws him a look before downing the pills with water. “Like a log, mate.”

Pete’s lips twitch. “There’s a morning wood joke in there but I’m letting it go,” he says, and Marcus snorts a laugh.

“So is it rat poison or sniper on the killing Kane front?”

“What?”

Pete stabs a slice of banana and raises it to his mouth. “You were plotting to kill Richo pretty impatiently last night. Almost too keen, if I’m honest. There was something about a camel too.”

Marcus rubs his forehead and hopes the painkillers will dull the headache. “I was not.”

“Mate, you wanted me to help you,” Pete says, laughing. “I disagreed, ‘course.”

He snorts. “Saint.” He looks up from coffee to find a smudge of yoghurt at the corner of Pete’s mouth and reaches over to wipe it off. “Child.”

Pete stares at him unimpressed. “I hauled your fat arse to bed last night—”

“Take that back, dickhead!”

“—because you were drunk. Keep insulting me and see if I don’t leave you at JL’s mercy. You should be kissing my arse, dude.”

Marcus grins sheepishly and hands over a slice of his bacon. “You know I love you, Petey.”

Pete grabs it. “Your love ain’t enough for what I put up with, Stoinis.” He smirks suddenly as he glances to their left and jerks his chin. “Though it might be for Mr Fucking Gorgeous over there, the way he’s watching you.”

It takes almost everything Marcus has to not react, both to the dig and to the obvious bait. He takes a measured bite of a slice of apple, tries to shove down his suddenly racing heartrate and takes a second before turning his head to look.

Pete laughs at him. “You still _suck _at faking casual, it’s pathetic, Stoin.”

“Shut up,” he hisses out of the corner of his mouth.

Zamps catches his gaze from five tables down, sitting with Coults and Kez, and the small quirk of his lips has Marcus smiling, raising his hand in greeting. Marcus think that the mess of tumbling blonde hair has never looked more inviting. He wants to touch it so badly he clenches his other hand on the table. That smile ticks up a little more and Marcus grins. His breathing may be uneven.

“Why don’t you ever smile at _me_ like that?”

Maxi’s drawling voice snaps Marcus right out of tumbling headlong into Zamps’ pale blue eyes, a flush spilling into his cheeks when he finds Pat standing beside a grinning Maxi.

“You’re an arsehole,” he tells him.

Pat drops into the chair next to Pete with a quiet hello, watching Marcus with a smile and an amused glint in his blue eyes. “Congrats on yesterday, mate. That was well done.”

Marcus almost sighs in relief. He smiles. “Thanks, mate. This,” he says, gesturing to Pat, “this is why Pat is my favourite person on this team.”

“I thought Zamps was your favourite,” Maxi says as he sets his coffee on the table and sits next to Marcus.

“Nope. Patty is my favourite human being. On earth. I’d marry Patty. In fact, find a pastor, I’ll marry Patty right now. I’m gonna be so good to you, Patrick.”

Pat grins and settles back in his chair. “You’re not my type, mate.”

“Sorry I’m not dumb and bogan enough for you,” he bites back, pouting. “We can’t all be Mitch.”

There’s a quiet choked noise from somewhere.

Pat’s eyes glitter like razor-edged sapphires. “I’m not nearly short or blond enough for you.”

Wow. Okay, so Patty does have claws. He might be a little proud. And for god’s sake, does _everyone_ know? Pete is supposed to be on his side but that smug little grin says otherwise.

Marcus drops his fork and flings his hands in the air, turning to glare at Maxi who just smirks at him. “I’m moving, m’gonna play for India. Virat would never treat me like this.”

“No,” Maxi says, laughing. “Virat would take the absolute piss out of you. And for the record, Zamp would miss you too much. Wouldn’t want to make him all pouty, would ya? Or maybe you’d prefer that.”

“I _will_ punch you in the throat, Glenn.”

“I’m shaking in my boots, babe.”

Marcus hates Glenn Maxwell. Let the record show _that. _

*

Absently playing with the spoon in his coffee, Adam watches Marc. The white shirt against that tan is unbelievable, those black shorts are so short, it’s _obscene _how much thigh is being shown off. The flex of his forearm as he sets down a plate of fruits and a coffee is distracting.

When Marc reaches across the table to wipe yoghurt off Pete’s face slowly, he grips the spoon too tight. When Marc turns and grins like the sun when he sees Adam looking, he smiles back a little. 

But that little gesture, wiping yoghurt off Pete’s face without just telling him it was there, keeps running through his mind.

That is until he hears Marc’s raised voice.

“…I love you, Petey.”

Oh.

His entire world narrows until those words echo in his ears. It takes Kez shaking his shoulder to bring him back to the conversation he had abandoned.

_I love you. _Again.

He throws himself into the nets at training later until sweat pours into his eyes and his fingers ache from gripping the ball too hard, imprints of the stitching digging welts into his skin.

*

Marcus brains himself on an esky.

But wait, let him rewind about ten minutes before he gets into _that_ humiliating situation.

He arrives at training, punctual and with a grin on his face now that the headache was fading away, poking cheekily at Finchy.

“’Morning, Grinch!”

“Pad up and into the nets,” is all he gets in response.

Marcus grins because wasn’t that _on brand_, turning away to do exactly that, and promptly forgets who or where he is.

Zamps pulls his shirt off and drops it onto his kit bag, exposing his long, tensed torso, shaking his sweaty hair away from his face as he pulls off the headband. Mouth dry, Marcus can only watch as those hands unscrew a bottle of water and pour it over his head, chest glistening under the sun, throat working as he takes a long pull from another bottle, pink lips pursed around its neck—

He yelps as his foot catches on something heavy, eyes tearing away from Zamps, and the ground rushes to meet him before he can throw his hands out. A vicious stab radiates from his temple, vision blackening for a moment, ears ringing.

A pained, shocked moan explodes out of him and he rolls to the side on the grass, fingers clutching at his hair. The sky whirls above him. Black spots pop in front of his eyes.

“Ow _fuck.”_

He lays there for a few long minutes, concerned voices jabbering in higher-pitched nonsense. Hands are helping him, pulling him upright, the voices surrounding him take a minute to calibrate in his head as everything steadies slowly. His head keeps pounding.

“…Marcus. Marcus.”

There are fingers snapping in front of his face and he swallows, blinking rapidly until his vision clears. The doc’s furrowed brows appear.

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing his head. He lets out a deep exhale. The pounding fades to a dulling throb with every slow breath and passing minute. “Yeah, no, I’m good, I’m fine.”

“Sit tight, Marcus.”

There’s a gale of laughter around them, a rousing harmony of breathless words and choked amusement, and his face burns as the doc fusses over him because _fuck. _Fuck.

He glances at the esky he had just hit his head on, the heavy bag filled with pads and gloves he’d tripped over, and groans silently, more heat flushing his cheeks. He did not just—he did not just fall over because Zamps took his fucking shirt off. He didn’t. He didn’t just literally _fall _for Zamps. Just a bad dream.

“I’m fine, I swear,” he stresses, glancing back to the doc.

Doc clicks his tongue and pulls out his pen-light. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Unfortunately, as the doc asks the typical questions, tests his memory, asks him to stand, checks his balance, his so-called friends are in stitches now that he’s alright. Maxi is leant on Pete, holding each other for support, near-crying. Coults is doubled over on the ground on his knees at the wicket of one net, tears on his face, clutching his sides and groaning as he laughs and _laughs. _Even Finchy is holding on by a fraying thread, eyes creased and dimples so deep as he braces himself against a pillar just off-ground.

Not a bad dream.

“I wasn’t looking where I was going, that’s all,” Marcus insists, chuckling helplessly as his team falls apart around him. _If you can’t beat ‘em…_and there was no beating this lot.

“Oh I bet you weren’t,” Maxi throws at him, rubbing his eyes. Tears glisten in the sun, smeared across his face. “I bet you fucking weren’t.”

JL looks like he wants to hit himself in the face with a bat, shaking his head into a hand, though there’s amusement twitching at the corners of his mouth. Kez next to him is battling the second round of giggles, set off by a doubled-over AT.

“Alright, mate, you’ll be fine.”

“Cheers, doc,” he mutters. His face is on fire and he can barely look in Zamps’ direction as he takes the offered Gatorade and turns to punch Maxi in the arm. “_Shut the fuck up, Glenn.” _

Pete is wiping tears off his face, giggles spilling out of him, and says, “I am so glad that’s on film.”

Marcus gapes in horror at the cameraman he forgot was following them, sees the wicked grin on Ben’s face as he throws him a thumbs up, and curses.

“Mate,” Maxi pats him on the back. “Mate, you’re a bit of a disaster.”

“Oi!” Zamps’ voice calls across the way and Marcus inhales sharp through his nose before turning around. “Y’alright, Stoin?”

Zamps looks concerned, eyebrows furrowed as he looks at Marcus. _Just punch me, _Marcus pleads silently, _please. _He pushes a bright grin to his face and raises the Gatorade, ignoring the still wet, shirtless status of the arsehole who’s fault all this is.

“Yeah, Zorb, all good, mate!”

Pat’s knowing grin next to Zamps as he tosses a ball up and down makes Marcus wonder if their resident number one test bowler would honour a request to pitch a 150ker to his face to just end his suffering.

*

Adam had just downed an entire bottle of water when there’s an eruption of laughter behind him and he turns around to find Marc sprawled on the floor with a doc kneeling next to him and half the team in tears, doubled over laughing. He watches for a few minutes, frowning at the quick concussion tests, and quirks a smile when Marc hisses at Maxi and hits him, watches Ben gives him a thumbs up. 

“Oi! Y’alright, Stoin?”

Marc turns to him, that supernova smile showing off his teeth and deepening the crinkles around his eyes. “Yeah, Zorb, all good, mate!”

Adam shoves down the urge to run and jump, wrap his legs around Marc’s steady waist and kiss him until that goddamn blush is entirely because of him.

Pat slinks up to him, a bright grin on his face, blue eyes laughing. “Nice work, legend.”

“The fuck did I do? The fuck happened?”

Marc is still blushing a dark soft red against that eternal golden tan and Adam worries at the inside of his cheek, watching it spill down his neck and into his ears, itching to kiss the arch of that rosy cheekbone, bite the slice of that jaw.

“Enough,” Pat says, laughing. He fiddles with the ball in his hand. “Stoin tripped over a kit bag and hit his head on the esky.”

Adam bursts into a startled laugh. “Thanks Patty.” He ambles over, settling in next to Marc who looks at him with brown eyes burning gold under the sun. “Hard enough head?”

Marc chokes and the blush deepens. His eyes flicker up and down. Adam wants to hate him for making his spine crawl from holding himself back from ripping that training shirt off him and licking his abs. That godforsaken zip is undone to the sternum, showing off sharp collarbones and a swirl of faint chest hair. Elsewhere outside this little bubble where Adam can’t seem to move his eyes off the edible flush in Marc’s cheeks and the ridge of those collarbones, there’s gleeful cackling.

“What?”

Adam arches an eyebrow, settles his weight on a hip. “I’m worried now, mate. You sure your head was hard enough to protect the soft squishy stuff inside?”

Marc just keeps staring at him. Zamps belatedly realises that he’s still shirtless and scratches idly at his stomach.

“Concussion, yes or no?”

“_Oh!” _Marc deflates, smile appearing suddenly, and reaches out to blindly kick a smirking Maxi. “No, no concussion. Just me being a bit clumsy, is all.”

“You’re an absolute idiot,” Pete says.

Maxi hums. His eyes take on an impish glint. “You didn’t have to faceplant into the esky, mate. Other things you can faceplant into to quench your thirst.”

Marc opens his mouth to say something, probably something along the lines of _fuck you very much you absolute arsehole, _Zamps think with a grin, judging by his expression, but JL beats him to it.

“You’re cleared, Stoinis_. In the nets! Now!”_

Marc scowls. “I’ll deal with you dickheads later,” he hisses and grabs Zamps’ arm. “C’mon, I need to hit some shit.”

Adam throws Maxi and Pete a wondering look, eyeing the smug, knowing grins, and decides to just let it go. He turns in Marc’s grip and wraps an arm around his waist, fingers curling into the fabric at his side.

“You _are_ a bit of an idiot.”

“Shut up, Zorb.”

But Marc settles a hand on the back of his bare neck and smiles, small and warm, and Adam thinks that maybe he’d let Marc do whatever the fuck he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all are having fun, still. Let me know!


	4. Out where the sun shines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trouble is, sometimes, it's kind of nice, this love thing. Don't ask me though, I wouldn't know.

Later, after a long, hot shower to ease his muscles, Marcus is lying on his bed and can’t get that lingering look from Zamps out of his head. It reminds him of India. The day before their match in Ranchi is one he doesn’t think he could ever forget. It’s a memory he keeps wrapped close to his heart.

_~flashback~ _

Corridors.

Endless corridors.

Marcus rubs his eyes, glancing down the never-ending stretch of red-patterned carpet and beige walls softly lit by gilt lamps.

It’s barely three in the afternoon and he is exhausted down to the bone, wishing for his bed, for an escape, which he shouldn’t be given that it’s their day off. His phone has been silent, not a peep from his team mates, his so-called friends, and so he had left it in his room as he wondered the hallways.

He sighs.

Sudden light spills in from the floor-to-ceiling windows besides the elevators as he rounds the corner and it pierces his eyes, early afternoon sunlight glinting off the windows in the building opposite, the splash of blue sky behind deep and inviting. He walks, almost hypnotised, to the windows and leans his forehead against it, looking out into the bustle of the streets below.

Just below him, the pool sparkles in the sun, the water turbulent and stormy with the chaos of the boys caught up in what looks like a game of chicken mixed in with water polo. AT falls off the broad shoulders of Finchy, face first into water. He grins a little, watching for a few moments as Coults jumps on top of him, before his eyes drift beyond the massive outer wall of the hotel, towards the horizon.

A familiar scene catches his eyes in the near distance and he makes a sudden decision, restlessness itching along his spine and the soft, endless artifice of the hotel like chalk irritating his skin.

Marcus cracks his neck, takes a quick peek back around the corner to make sure no one is heading his way, and darts into an elevator.

The lobby is relatively quiet, a few guests dotted around but thankfully empty of any of their crew, security, or anyone who might stop him slipping out those giant glass doors. A rare occurrence which only serves to encourage this potentially idiotic but also daring attempt at escape. He may get lost, given he decided to leave his phone behind, but the hotel dominates the skyline. Finding his way back is a matter of pointing and gesturing.

The doorman smiles, says _see you soon, sir _as he slips past, and Marcus, tasting his freedom like crisp spring water on his tongue, grins back.

He slips on his sunglasses, hunching in on himself to avoid attention, difficult considering a) he’s unfortunately well-known given his IPL record and b) he’s a six-foot white guy in India, and walks down the sloped driveway of the hotel in the direction of street. A taxi driver nods at him as he rumbles past towards the foyer.

A hand slips around his bicep just as he is about to step onto the sidewalk, halting him in his tracks.

_Fuck. Please don’t be a coach, please don’t be a coach—_

Zamps’ arched eyebrow greets him when he spins around, sheepishness etched into the bite of a lip and one hand raised in surrender.

_Thank god. _

Marcus drops the hand. “Uh, hi.” He really hopes he doesn’t look too guilty, though there’s little hope of Zamps not picking up on it.

The eyebrow lowers but the inquiring, expressionless face doesn’t move an inch. The question is obvious in the resonating silence punctured by the cacophony of car horns and the musical trills of buses. _Where the fuck are you going? _

Marcus opens his mouth to answer but Zamps interrupts before he can even voice the rapidly formulated, slightly patchy, cover story.

“Don’t fucking lie, it’ll be embarrassing for both of us.”

His mouth shuts with a snap.

Zamps lets go of his arm. “So where’s this clearly unsanctioned excursion to?”

“What makes you think it’s unsanctioned?”

“You look about as guilty as the time we broke into Patty’s room and stole his favourite training cap.”

Never mind that the guilt had been worsened by the fact that Pat had looked devastated as he went around asking if anyone had seen it and Marcus had felt it burning a hole through his backpack as each _sorry, mate, haven’t seen it, _made those blue eyes sadder and sadder. He had caved like a chocolate egg in the sun, melting out of the shadows and handing Pat the cap while Zamps rolled his eyes in exasperation. But Zamps’ retaliatory punch to his balls and hissed, _coward,_ had been worth the distraught drooping image of Pat blooming back into that blinding smile.

“Nobody wants to make Patty looks sad, Adam. It’s like kicking a puppy and I know you’re against animal cruelty!” Zamps pins him with a look. Marcus sighs. “I just.” He waves a hand up at the hotel. “It’s so shut in, I hate it. It’s driving me up the wall.”

Zamps’ eyes soften, the wind picking up a stray strand of gold-spun hair and fluttering it over his forehead. He steps around Marcus, setting his feet firmly on the street. “Where’re we going, then?”

Marcus feels a smile spill across his face. “C’mon Zampy boy,” he says, tossing an arm over Zamps’ shoulders. “Let us be free.”

Zamps scoffs but wraps his arm around Marcus’ waist. There’s a soft squeeze to his hip, a thumb brushing his waist. “Let’s just go before someone sees, Marc.”

He glows internally, an ache in his chest and a flush in his cheeks. That nickname always leaves him feeling like he’s been spun around blindfolded and told to bowl clean through middle stump.

The streets of Ranchi are busy, though Marcus is faintly glad it’s nowhere near the chaos of Mumbai or Delhi. They wonder past street food stalls and small convenience stores, Marcus sighing as the smells drift past him, cursing that match they had tomorrow or he’d eat himself into a food coma.

_“Oi!” _

He’s pulled out of the way of the oncoming the motorcycle zipping down the sidewalk by a hairsbreadth.

Zamps looks at Marcus with glittering blue eyes, both of them flushed and grinning despite the near-miss, Zamps’ fingers a clamp around his bicep. “Can’t ever say India is boring,” he says after a moment. 

Marcus laughs aloud. He opens his eyes with the laugh still fading to see several locals watching him curiously. He waves. Some of them wave back, return his smile. There’s a yell of _Stoinis! _from across the street and Marcus raises an arm to acknowledge the guy with a widening grin. When he glances back at Zamps, he’s watching him with a faint smile on his face and an unreadable look.

“What?” 

Zamps shakes his head, that same mystified look in his eyes, smile unwavering. “You just can’t help it, can you.”

“Again, what?”

“Never mind. Let’s go.”

When they make it, after several wrong turns and a memorable conversation with a shop lady in English and atrocious, broken Hindi (on their part), Marcus breathes in the sight with a growing smile.

Zamps makes a sound next to him, a half laugh-half sigh. The sun highlights his profile when he turns to look at Marcus. “Daily life not enough for you?”

“Shut up.”

Zamps’ gaze lingers before it swings back to the front. “Kid’s got good form.”

The small village cricket ground is a dustbowl, the wind wafting up clouds of brown dirt as the bowler runs in, as the bat strikes the ground, as a fielder dives for a catch, but it’s full of young teenagers bearing bright grins and dirtied pantlegs, and Marcus feels the atmosphere buzzing under his skin.

Their presence is noticed quickly, as incongruent as they are with the surroundings, and a yell goes around. They’re suddenly watched from all over the ground.

A tall kid comes over to them, tossing the ball in his hands. “Hello.”

“Hello. I’m Marcus.” He grins, pointing at himself and then gesturing to Zamps. “This is Adam. Can we play?”

The kid holds out a hand for him to shake. “Manoj. Come.” He shakes Zamps’ hand before turning to yell at the others.

They’re absorbed into the game, the kids clever enough to pit them against each other, excited chatter rippling across the ground. Marcus throws a cheeky bow at Zamps as he accepts the bat from a wide-eyed kid and gets a shark-like smile in return as Zamps takes his place at the discarded PVC pipe/rope boundary.

Marcus loses himself in the rush of the game, letting the energy and excitement and not-so-fresh air flow through him, for once just playing without thinking of the end goal.

_“Come on, Marcus!” _

_“Marcus!” _

_“Adam!”_

_“Ad-am! Catch!” _comes ringing from the opposition captain when Marcus leaves a barely-there chance for Zamps to catch him out. It sails over his head as he leaps up for it and Marcus bursts out laughing when Zamps swings around to glare at him.

“Sorry, Zorbo!”

“Bite me, arsehole!”

_Wish I fucking could, thanks. _

Marcus gets clean bowled for thirty two by a shaggy-haired fast bowler who surprises him with a ball that swings in right through off-stump and leaves him blinking at where the ball really should have been. Zamps yells the loudest as his team huddles in victory. Marcus sticks out his tongue and gets a few laughs from the fielders around as he walks off.

He bowls to the tall kid, Manoj, who greeted them and gets hit for three sixes and a four, catches Zamps out on his second shot, diving to his left to catch the ball and skinning his bare knees, and is flooded by his little teammates, cheering wild and loud. Zamps hands over the bat to the next-in-line and walks off the field, catching Marcus’ eyes over the heads of the kids, and smiles, something proud and fond in his gaze. Marcus feels that look settle somewhere deep in his chest as the cheers ring in his ears.

When one of his boys eventually hits a six miles over the longest boundary and wins the game, he pulls him up onto his shoulders and parades the laughing fourteen year-old around the ground as all the boys flock around them. Zamps pats his back, ruffles the hair of the kids surrounding him too, now, and grins up at Marcus. The sun is low in the sky, several hours later, burning red and half-hidden behind a building, and it’s settled in a flush in Zamps’ cheeks, burnt orange strewn through his hair, and maybe Marcus wants to kiss him until that mouth is bitten red like the sun.

One kid points at the logo on Zamps’ shorts as they settle down after the celebrations. “Australia?” And then points at the distant, visible points of the stadium pavilion. “Yes?”

“Yeah,” Zamps says. He jerks his chin in Marcus’ direction. “We play for Australia.”

There’s a round of _oohs_.

Marcus laughs and pats a few of them on the back. “You guys are awesome. Thanks for letting us play.”

“You are also awesome,” a boy in a faded Dhoni shirt says. “Very good bowling. Batting is okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Yes, is okay.”

Zamps’ laughter sounds like it’s punched out of him, a blurted explosion of noise that turns into amused cackling. Marcus turns to tell him just what he thinks about that when he spots two figures on the boundary and withers internally.

“Uh, Ad, we should go.” He stands up and dusts off his knees, looking around at all the faces around them. “Keep playing, boys.”

They get enthusiastic high-fives before they split off again to play and Zamps watches them for a moment before turning to Marcus, setting a hand on his arm. “Thanks. For letting me come.”

“You didn’t exactly leave me a choice, Zorb.”

He gets shoved for that one. “The polite thing is to say _you’re welcome_.”

“You’re just mad ‘cos you lost.”

“And your batting is just okay, Big Rig.”

“Mad I got you out, aren’t ya?”

“Fuck you.”

That one’s almost too easy, he has to let it go. 

Zamps doesn’t get to say much else as they approach the edge of the field and Finchy stands there with Maxi at his right, an unimpressed look on his face. Maxi, in typical fashion, is fighting a smile.

“Mommy and daddy got worried, eh?” Marcus asks.

Finchy’s expression sinks into murderous. Maxi’s teeth flash in a grin before he fights it down.

“You’re lucky we need the two of you or I’d kill you myself. The fuck did you fucking run off without telling anyone?”

“Mate, we just needed a—”

Marcus interrupts. “Listen, this is not his fault. I needed to get the fuck out of the hotel and he got dragged along.” He scratches the back of his head and looks at Finchy, hoping he looks sufficiently meek. “Sorry, mate.”

Finchy groans, rubbing his forehead. “Stop with the face, I can’t fucking deal with that right now. I’m glad you played with these kids, it’s a good thing to do, but your knees are bleeding and you’re covered in dust so get in the fucking tuk before I do something I regret.”

He storms away to the two waiting tuks and Maxi lets out the laugh he’s been holding back.

“Good thing you had your phone,” he says to Zamps. “That’s the only reason JL is not absolutely frothing mad. Fucking find my iPhone.”

Zamps shakes his head. “I’m riding with Dogga.” He shoots Marcus a small grin and heads down the alleyway.

Maxi sweeps a bow in the direction of the empty tuk. “Your ride awaits, good sir.”

Marcus tears his eyes away from the back of Zamps’ head and hooks an arm around Maxi’s neck. “Thanks for keeping Finchy down, mate.”

“I’ve done no such thing.”

“Then why’d you come with him? You were asleep, last I checked.”

“Shut up, Oil, get your arse in the tuk.”

Marcus is fought off grumpily when he tries to kiss his cheek. He figures the scrapes on his knees are worth spending a few hours out in the open air playing cricket with the people that really keep them playing.

_~end flashback~_

Marcus stares at the ceiling and wishes he could relive that afternoon just once more. Maybe he could pretend Zamps watched him the way he wanted him to. 

There’s a knock at his door.

He groans. The last thing he wants is company right now. “Go away!”

The knocking becomes incessant.

_“Oi! _Let me in!”

He yanks himself out of bed and stalks to the door, throwing it open and spinning on his heel back towards the bed. “What do you want, Peter.”

“What’s with the attitude, mate? Zorbo’s heart eyes from training not enough to keep your spirits up for the day?”

“I will break your face.”

Pete just hums. There’s the sound of rustling clothes and Marcus turns around to find a shirtless Pete in boardshorts elbow deep in his suitcase, pushing his not-very-neatly packed clothes this way and that.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Need to do laundry, so I need a shirt,” is what comes muffled over a shoulder. “Aha!” Pete stands up with a white shirt in his hand. “This’ll do.”

“Why yes, Pete, ‘course you can borrow a shirt, thanks for asking,” Marcus mutters, rolling his eyes.

Pete’s fluffed up hair emerges through the neck hole. “What’s yours is mine on tour, perks of being the smaller one.” He’s swimming in the shirt when he finally pulls it on properly, the neckline gaping, showing off his collarbones, and swallowing most of his upper arms.

Marcus can’t help but start laughing.

Pete sighs and tugs at the sleeves. “It’s just to get to the pool, since I can’t go through the lobby without a shirt.”

“You look beautiful, Handsome.”

He gets a _look. _“C’mon,” Pete says, waving a hand. “Get off your moping ass.”

“I don’t _wanna, _Petey._” _

His board shorts hit him in the face.

“Get changed, you absolute pest, and your drink’s on me.”

Marcus gets changed in record time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, a pool scene to end all pool scenes and Marcus finds out Pete's little secret. And someone else's. If you have Thoughts™, let me know please. I live for comments of any kind.


	5. Sea glass and surprises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out, he's not the only one pining after someone unattainable. Marcus thinks this should make him feel better but it doesn't. It just sucks. Not for me though, I'm having a great time writing this fic because I'm awful and love causing pain to characters.

White knuckles glare amidst pale pink, sharp pain digging into fingers and the meat of his palm but Adam doesn’t notice, eyes glued to the two figures strolling from the hotel along the side of the pool towards the sun lounges.

A bright laugh echoes across the water and the phone squeaks as his grip tightens around it.

His eyes flick to the grin that makes something winch tight in his chest every time, makes the air leak out of his lungs and his fingers twitch, mouth dry at the arms shown off in that muscle shirt, but inevitably his gaze is drawn back to the t-shirt.

He knows that t-shirt, knows how soft that white material is, knows how it looks against a golden tan and soft rose-copper flush that he wants to lick, but what he knows best of all is that Peter Handscomb should not be fucking wearing it.

His jaw creaks under the pressure of his grinding teeth.

Irritation licks flames through his veins.

That shirt is draped over Pete like a fucking caress, showing off sharp pale collarbones and the short sleeves falling down to his elbows. Pete picks at the shirt then, fingers fisting in the material to pull it away from his body, gesturing at it. Adam spares a passing thought to murder.

Marc throws his head back and laughs. It rings in Adam’s ears like a reminder that he would never be able to see that shirt again knowing that Marc had let Pete wear it. Somewhere in the back of his head, a little rational voice tells him that that’s fucking ridiculous because long tours inevitably meant stealing clothes from everyone else—

Marc slings an arm over Pete’s shoulders, hand coming to rest over bare collarbones and tickling, that bright grin widening when Pete squirms, and he dives in to kiss Pete’s scrunched up cheek.

Murder would be too _fucking_ kind.

Adam throws his legs over the side of the sun lounge and stands up, halfway through tearing off his shirt. He needs to cool down. He flings his phone behind him as a passing thought and storms to the pool. His heartbeat is pounding in his ears as he strides barefoot across warm concrete, heat crawling over his skin, and he doesn’t know if it’s the heat of an early Dubai summer or the infuriated embarrassment at his own stupid, irreconcilable feelings that has him choking back the speechless fury crowding his throat.

_For fuck’s sake. _

He takes a running dive into the deeper end of the pool.

It’s a wonder steam doesn’t rise from the surface as he hits the water.

*

Marcus is laughing as Pete shoves him away.

“Dude, you know I love you but stop using me as a distraction in place of Zamps,” Pete huffs, shoving him again when Marcus tries to sneak another kiss to his bunched-up cheek. _“Stoin.” _

“Nah, you’re fucking complicit. I don’t care, this is for my sanity,” he snaps back cheerfully.

Pete sighs, exasperation clear in his half-hearted glare.

He glances up again to where Zamps had been lounging on a day bed like Aphrodite herself had blessed him to lay around looking like _that, _existing in that half ethereal elf-half Top Gun Maverick state where he looks like he could murder a man in cold blood with a single pretty look if he raised his vintage Gucci aviators high enough. Marcus will never admit to just how much that look works for him. 

But he looks up now and his steps falter. He pauses in his tracks. The world narrows.

Zamps is striding down to the pool, expression silent but edged with something almost _deadly _than has a shiver racing down Marcus’ spine, and time seems grow slow, molasses slow, as he swallows. The elf prince is nowhere to be seen. Shirtless, the ripple of strength hidden just beneath the skin, the play of muscle and the sharp slant of hipbones into the waistband of his boardshorts—

His mouth is drier than the desert outside the city, mouth hinged open, and all he can do is stare.

Marcus is very, _very _glad, he thinks almost feverishly, that Zamps has foregone his usual speedo-style swimsuit for boardshorts or he would have just died right here. Just dropped dead and melted away in a hiss of steam on the cement below his feet. Even the thought of those strong thighs and—okay, that is _enough._

He swallows, throat thick, as Zamps breaks into a run and does a stunning front flip into the pool. _“Fuck _me_,” _he breathes out. He burns with a sudden flush of heat. The sun is too hot today. It has to be the sun. “What the fuck was that?”

_Jesus—_

A hand connects with the middle of his back and the ground leaves his feet. A yell explodes out of him.

The shock of cold knocks the breath out of his lungs. Water rushes into his nose. A gulp of chlorinated water pushes down his throat.

Marcus surfaces with a gasp, water streaming out of his nose, chest tight as he coughs what he can out of his lungs and treads water in the deeper end of the pool, eyes burning. His nose itches and he sneezes, spluttering. He spins with a glower to find Maxi grinning next to a cackling Pete.

“What the fuck?!”

“Thought you could use a cool-down, mate,” Maxi says and his expression is devilish. “Looked a bit parched if I’m honest.”

Arousal well and truly doused, flame retardant spilt over wildfire, Marcus tries to fight the flush that spills into his cheeks and fails. He sighs, shooting a dirty look at Maxi, and looks down at his soaked clothing, pulling his wet shirt away from his body with a squelch.

“God fucking dammit, this was my last clean shirt,” he mutters. He’d have to pay some ridiculous amount to get his laundry done at the hotel. “Fuck.”

Arms and legs sweeping through the water, he sighs again, and makes his way to the edge and places his palms on the ledge and jumps. He may as well take the clothes off and get back in, now that he’s completely drenched.

He glares again at Pete, _who is still laughing, _as he pushes himself out. He glances back at where Zamps is floating lazily on his back, eyes closed and serene. “Like I said,” he mutters darkly. “This is for my sanity.”

Pete snorts.

* 

White shirts should be considered illegal by international law. Punishable by death if they’re wet. No man should be trusted with that kind of power.

Consciously unfurling his clenched fists, Adam breathes a slow exhale as he watches Marc strip off the clinging wet fabric and stand there in the sun, water glistening across his taut stomach and pectorals. His normally powerful arms are wet and bunched as Marc flexes just the slightest as he throws the shirt onto a sun lounge and cards a hand through his wet hair.

Adam hisses through his teeth silently and decides he’s had enough of this ridiculous gun show. He pulls himself off his back and stands up in the water.

“Oi, Stoin! You gonna to stand there pretending to be fucking god’s gift to earth or join the rest of us mortals in the pool?”

Marc crosses his arms—_what did he_ _just say about the gun show_—teeth sinking into that full lower lip and Adam prays to any god feeling generous enough to spare him. “You saying I’m god’s gift to earth, Zorba?” his grin is wide and pleased, cheeky. He flexes his stomach until the six pack stands out, cut clean from solid muscle.

The feverish heat in his cheeks is the fault of the Arabian sun. “I said _pretending, _mate, get in the fucking pool.”

_Hide your body under the water before I do something I fucking regret. _

Marc laughs a full belly laugh, sun slanting shadows into his dimples, and takes an almost perfect swan dive into the deep end.

Show off.

But as Marc swims up to him and stands, Adam realises that he had miscalculated. Badly.

Because those wide shoulders, neck and collarbones are tanned and wet, and still very much visible, glistening under the sun, and Adam has to hold his own self-control hostage as it threatens to escape into the distant sand dunes, to let his stupid impulses take over and rake his nails across that perfect skin, leave red welts just for him, and maybe lick the water off the dip in his collarbones—

He practically throws himself underwater, flustered and pissed off now because is there nowhere he can _hide._

The gurgling of the pool filters aside, it’s calm beneath the surface and Adam’s racing thoughts have the open space to roam free but he claws them back inside, stuffs them shut inside the box they escaped from and lets a breath out in a stream of bubbles. Hiding in the blessed underwater silence, Adam pushes himself to the floor and sits, suspended for a moment, and opens his eyes.

And maybe he should just drown himself right here.

Opening his eyes had been a mistake because here, here he has an unobstructed view of Marc’s stupid broad chest and thighs lit by the sun like a spotlight carved by the gods just for that, and pushing himself into the depths of the deep end and dying in the shadows seems like an excellent idea instead of this self-inflicted torture.

He shuts his eyes.

Has to surface because his chest is empty and cinched tight, hurting and awful, and his gasping inhale is too loud in his own ears above the rush off the water sluicing off him.

A hand comes to rest on his hip as he stumbles slightly and another comes to rest on his other hip when he pushes his hair off his forehead and looks up blearily. Marc is smiling, a little soft around the edges and a lot gorgeous, holding him.

“Alright, Zorb?”

The airlessness in his chest has nothing to do with losing his breath underwater.

Adam can only stare into the dark whiskey gold eyes trained on his face, hurting and hurting because not a minute ago he had been flushed hot with lust but the gentle hands steadying him and the questioning look, that tiny little furrow in that strong brow, and confused smile, has his whole chest aching from the inside like he’s been hit by a truck.

Marc is saying something but Adam can’t hear it, he has no idea what words are being shaped by that mouth. His ears are buzzing, pulsing with his stupid heartbeat, gone crazy because there are thumbs brushing gently back and forth at his hips, big warm hands holding him like maybe he’s worth holding on to and maybe Adam is having a fucking breakdown on a random afternoon in a hotel pool in Dubai.

He couldn’t be further away from _cool _right now.

The stray, wondering thought is so absurd it almost makes him laugh.

The furrow across Marc’s brow deepens and Adam is just enough out of it, tunnelled just a little too deep into his own thoughts, that he reaches up. Up and up until his thumb presses into the folds of skin, smoothing them out.

Marc’s eyes are wide, so wide, and Adam is in love with him.

A small puff of air against his wrist and Adam’s eyes flick down to the caving dimple, and his hand slides down, down, until his thumb presses into it, hand cupping the sharp jaw.

He’s grinning, can’t help himself in this out-of-body moment because it feels like he’s floating above his body and watching himself do something so reckless and stupid like shoving his hand into an open flame—

_CRASH. _

The water rocks around them and Adam startles away from Marc. Marc who’s watching him with unreadable eyes, wide and dark, endless and a little helpless like a baby deer caught in the headlights of a speeding train, and something possessive and loud growls in his chest.

He did _that_.

A sound catches his ear and his eyes shift over Marc’s shoulder.

Everything inside him shrivels.

_Oh. _

_Fuck._

_FUCK. _

It’s like something cold snatches him by the pit of his stomach and drags his stupid, _stupid _soul back into his body, slamming unceremoniously into the reality of the moment and he spins away from Marc, red hot horror bleeding across his face.

Peter Handscomb is laughing with Kane, standing near the other end of the pool, laughing at Maxi who had dive-bombed into the pool right into Finchy.

“_Fuck_,” he hisses under his breath. “How the fuck did I forget. I shouldn’t have done that. He’s with _Pete. _Oh god, he’s with Pete._” _

He throws himself into the water, spluttering his way into swimming a hard, painful lap down to the other end of the pool, hands clawing through the water and every breath rattling in his lungs.

All he can see in the expanse of black behind his eyes is the startled look in dark eyes.

*

_He’s going to kiss me. _The thought crashes around inside his head as he stares down at Zamps, fingers digging into his hips so hard it has to be hurting. But Zamps doesn’t flinch away and his eyes are like pale blue sea glass as he stares at him. _He’s going to kiss me. _

He doesn’t. 

“…shouldn’t have done that…Pete…” is all he hears before Zamps is tearing away from him, slipping from his hands like smoke out the door.

What the fuck does Pete have to do with anything?

Marcus stands frozen, hands still in the air where they had been curled around Zamps’ hips, the heat of the sun nothing compared to the heat pulsing in his left dimple, Zamps’ fingerprint branded to his face now, even as Zamps swims away from him.

_What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck—_

He watches him, stomach in knots, until he turns to look at what spooked Zamps so much he had literally swum away, and all the confusion and uncertainty evaporates. Something like anger tries to ignite but the resignation chases it away.

Ah.

Kane is standing with Pete not far away.

Marcus heaves himself out of the pool, heart in his throat, head spinning. _So that’s why he can’t fucking do it. Pete’s over there flirting with his boyfriend. _

Marcus tries to snort and chokes on what sounds more like a pained sigh.

It doesn’t matter, he tries to tell his stupid racing heart. It’s not like Zamps would have actually kissed him, no matter how much he wanted it, no matter how gentle his fingers had felt holding his face. He has Kane.

Marcus swallows, throat tight.

“Oi Stoin!”

Pete yells across the pool and he leaves Kane behind—Marcus tries not to sigh in relief because Kane is a very good mate but right now, he really doesn’t want to talk to him—and runs down the length of the pool towards him.

But as Pete is running, he trips.

Except he never hits the ground.

Because Pat appears from almost nowhere and Pete stumbles, yelps and falls into Pat. He falls into Pat and Pat manages to stop that momentum, absorbing the force that Pete hits him with and somehow ends up with Pete swung into a low dip.

Marcus is cackling.

Pat is laughing, eyes crinkled and bright, as he looks down at Pete in his arms. “I reckon Maxi would have some horrible joke about falling for me right about now, eh?”

Marcus doubles over, shaking with laughter, as Pat’s cheeky grin widens.

But Pete isn’t laughing. Pete is far from laughing and Marcus feels his laughter subside the longer Pete, still held in that ridiculously flashy dip, stares up at Pat with wide, shocked eyes. His mouth is dropped open and his eyes are sweeping frantically across Pat’s face. One of his hands is curled around Pat’s upper arm and the other is resting on Pat’s bare chest. Pete seems to realise where that hand is, eyes flicking to it like he doesn’t know what to do with it or how it got there, and the hand twitches before Pete snatches it away.

A weak laugh slips out of Pete eventually, a painful attempt at casual, but his ears are burning red.

All this takes no more than five seconds and Pat is pulling Pete upright, clapping his back twice and then slipping into the pool.

Pete looks like someone had taken his diary and read it on the seven o’ clock news.

And yeah, Marcus isn’t laughing anymore either.

Pete pauses until Pat has swum far enough away and immediately collapses onto a lounge like his knees have actually gone weak, face red.

Marcus cannot believe his eyes.

“I cannot believe my eyes,” he says. He walks slowly to where Pete is sitting on a sun lounge. “What the fuck was that, Petey?”

Pete picks up the nearest object and throws it blindly his head. It’s a bottle of sunscreen and misses by a good metre, landing in the pool next to a bemused Kez.

“You’re blushing.” Incredulous, Marcus gapes at Pete. Absolute, indescribable shock echoes inside him. “Peter_.”_

Pete looks up with a glare. “You almost fucking kissed Zamps in front of everyone two seconds ago, this conversation should not be about me.”

Marcus throws him a look that should eviscerate him but grins almost immediately, flopping onto the sun lounge opposite Pete and leaning back on his hands, glee bubbling in his chest to drown out the mortification of his own mistakes. _God, he had almost kissed— _

“You’re actually blushing, Foot Brush,” he says, hastily shutting down the high-definition replay of those water-darkened blonde lashes fanned above pale blue sea-storm eyes.

Pete rubs both palms down his face and scrubs a hand through his wet hair. “You should get your eyes checked, mate.”

“Petey boy, you just slipped and fell into Patty’s arms like a Disney princess.”

There’s an audible groan from Pete as he covers his face with his hands and collapses forward, elbows digging into his knees. “Don’t fucking remind me. Bastard.”

Marcus bites his tongue, cheeks aching with how hard he’s grinning, feeling absolutely no sympathy for Pete because he’d been of _no _help during training when Marcus needed him most.

_“Oh, Pat,” _he says in a voice pitched several octaves higher, clasping his hands together and batting his eyelashes. _“You saved my life! Let me show my appreciation by staring at your pretty face and groping your abs.” _

“Fuck off_, _I didn’t _grope his abs,” _Pete hisses, tearing his hands away. He’s flushing deeper, the curve of his cheeks darkening to a bright, rose-berry red. He glances out of the corner of his eye towards the pool where Pat is now on the shoulders of Coults, fighting Kane on Ussie’s shoulders, his entire torso and said abs on full display, glistening wet in the sun. “I might’ve accidentally felt them but, just—you’re the fucking worst human being.”

Marcus follows his gaze and smirks. “He is arguably prettier than me so I don’t blame you.”

“He’s so much better looking than your ugly mug,” Pete mutters.

Pat throws his head back and laughs, entire face lighting up, dimples caving into his cheeks, crinkles fanning out besides his ocean blue eyes, one hand curved gently around his ribs, the other tugging long fingers through his hair, bicep bunching up as his arm moves, and Pete throws himself backward on the sun lounge with a pained sound. Marcus bursts into laughter, watching Pete cover his face with his arms, cheeks burning so, _so _red, and feels vindictively satisfied.

But after a moment, the longer Pete hides and winces, Marcus quietens down a little, something melancholy settling in his chest as he watches.

“You like him,” he says as it dawns on him slowly, properly, and it feels like a weight it shouldn’t be. Pete flails a little more. “Don’t you? You _like _him.”

Pete raises his head with a scowl. “You’ve been acting like a bloody idiot about Zamps for five fucking years.” But he doesn’t deny it.

“Yeah well, whatever the fuck I feel is unimportant,” Marcus mutters, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “He’s never gonna feel the same way with Richo around. But I reckon you’re in with a chance. Pat seemed pretty happy to have you that close. Also I have no fucking clue where he came from but it’s like he appeared just to avoid you having to scrape your knee open.”

Pete throws his head back onto the sun lounge with a groan.

Later, when the team rounds up for a quick meeting in the evening, Marcus nudges Pete in the ribs and waggles his eyebrows when Pat walks into the room, and Pete promises him a swift death under his breath, pinching the soft inside of his upper arm hard enough that Marcus yelps.

“I totally support this crush,” Marcus says just as the meeting gets started, rubbing the freshly forming bruise.

“Shut up.”

“_Seriously!_ Patty is a respectable crush choice.”

“Stoinis, if you’ve got something to say, share with the class, please,” their head batting coach calls from up the front.

“I said Patty is going to crush those boys,” Marcus says with a cheeky grin, shooting Pete a wink, who schools his face into his usual innocent expression and kicks him under the table.

Marcus bites down a wince as the boys chuckle around the room, Patty leaning around Dorff to shoot him a look. Marcus aims a sparkling grin his way as Pete sinks low in his chair.

JL rolls his eyes and gestures for the coach to continue. Across the table, Gazza’s lips twitch and he glances at Marcus out of the corner of his eyes, arching an eyebrow. Marcus shrugs innocently.

*

There’s a knock at his door and Marcus pauses in the middle of his mildly tipsy rant about why Pat definitely won’t say no if Pete would just grow some balls and ask him out.

“You order something?”

Pete doesn’t raise his head from where he’s dangling upside down sideways off the bed. “Been sat here for the past hour listening to you go on, mate, ‘course I didn’t order anything. Should’ve, though.”

Rolling his eyes, Marcus pulls himself up off the floor. “Alright, settle down.” Another knock comes as he straightens up, stretching his tingling legs. “I’m coming, dammit!”

When the door swings open, Kez is standing on the other side. “Hey, mate.”

“Kezza! What’s up, boy?” Marcus grins, propping a shoulder against the doorframe. “Thought you went out with the cartel.”

Kez smiles a little sheepishly at him and holds up a packet of Tim Tams in what seems like a peace offering and a bribe all at once. “Was planning on it but didn’t feel like it in the end.” The smile drops and he glances off to the side before looks back at Marcus. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, mate, ‘course. Pete’s here too, if that’s okay,” Marcus says, frowning a little. Kez looks uncertain as he steps inside and Marcus frowns. “You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Hey Pete,” Kez murmurs when Pete scrambles into a sitting position with a greeting. He tosses the Tim Tams onto the bed and drops onto the lone couch in the room, rubbing both hands down his face. He sits, silent, for a beat. “Stoin, can I ask you something?”

Marcus sits on the edge of the bed. Not so fine then. “Always.”

Kez almost startles into the laugh that punches out of him and his blue eyes are unwavering when they settle on him. “You might regret that someday, Stoiny. Okay, if…if you had a thing for a teammate, what would you do?”

Oh.

Well, that was unexpected.

Pete has gone completely still. Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus can see the tension in his shoulders. Marcus can’t hear anything but his heartbeat in that moment, the blunt question resonating in his head.

“Uh, I…I mean, I don’t know? Guess I wouldn’t say anything, right, because it probably wouldn’t be a good plan—”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Kez says. His smile is a little too knowing.

Marcus shuts up. “I don’t know what I’d do,” he says after a moment. The uncertain look from earlier suddenly pops into his head. “Wait,” he blurts out, jerking into motion. “Kez, do _you_ like one of the boys?”

“Do I?” Kez sighs and his laugh is amused and humourless in equal turns as he sits back against the couch. A beat of silence passes where no one dares to make a sound. “I’d be as happy as you if Zamps wasn’t with Kane,” he says to the ceiling.

Marcus is about to choke on his own breathing when Kez’s eyes flick down to him, a knowing glint in them.

“Kane. It’s Kane. Not Zamps, before you panic. I’ve gone and caught feelings for Kane, mate, not that pocket rocket you’re in love with. I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole, I don’t want to die in my sleep when you stab me in the middle of the night nor do I have a thing for the kind of sarcasm that can strip the skin off your bones.”

“Hey!” Marcus laughs, affronted. “Fuck you, Kez. You’ve signed up for a fun deal with fucking _Kane, _mate. Those two are fucking surgically attached for a reason. Kane is just as fucking acidic and vegan as Zorb behind the pretty smile.”

Kez shrugs and the smile that spills across his mouth is a revelation, soft and a little helpless and absolutely fucking _gone. _“I think that’s just your jealousy talking,” is what he says. “Kane is a good mate of yours, everyone knows that.”

“Rude.” Marcus sighs and rubs his nose. _He’s doomed_, he thinks, fondness filling his chest as he watches Kez rub the side of his nose absently. “Couldn’t you have picked someone less likely to be…Kane?” He asks anyway.

A lilting laugh. “I can’t control this stupid thing in my chest any more than you can, Stoiny. If I could, you reckon I’d have chosen _Kane Richardson? _Besides the tiny issue of him being, you know, a _him, _I’ve known him a long time. I’ve been so fucking confused for so long it was almost a relief to understand what I was feeling. Doesn’t feel like relief all that often though.”

Pete lets out a strangled laugh, before finally relaxing back onto the bed and snorting. “Wow, aren’t you two a pair.”

“Don’t you go getting on your high fucking horse, Handscomb.” It’s fucking _rich _that the fucker is sitting there looking all smug.

“I heard you guys by the pool,” Kez says, eyes brightening. He catches Marcus’ gaze with a glint in his eyes and glances at Pete with a biting grin. “Pat’s a good choice.”

“_Hah!” _explodes out of him.

“Oh fuck you too, Alex,” Pete says, rolling his eyes when Marcus holds out his hand for an enthusiastic high five that is returned. “Fuck you both.”

Kez’s gaze is warm when it flicks over them both. Marcus wants to roll him up in a soft blanket and protect him from the world, from _Kane_. “Guess I thought you guys would understand,” he says quietly, tangling his hands together. The smile is reluctant. “Sorry to spring this on you.”

Marcus sighs internally, heart heavy. Kez of all people deserves more than this dead-end road paved with heartbreak and a never-ending search for scraps of affection to fill the damn void inside.

“Kez.” Pete smiles a little. “I’m glad you told us.”

“We’re gonna have a good time, Kezza.” Marcus reaches across for a fist bump and grins when Kez knocks their knuckles together. “You’re fucked over Kane, Pete’s pining over our star bowler, and I’m…well, we’re just a sad bunch, aren’t we.”

“Whiskey?” Pete holds up a miniature bottle of the Black Label they had pulled out of the minibar alongside the rest of its contents. “On the rocks, even. We’re very classy in this joint.” He squints at Marcus. “We’ve got ice…I think.”

Kez pushes himself off the armchair and drops down on the edge of the bed.

Marcus huffs a laugh. “I’ll take that as a yes, Kezza boy.”

Kez throws back the entire bottle in answer. Pete’s unfurling smile is sharp and pleased.

“To the Pining Idiots Club,” Marcus says, raising a bottle, and it’s greeted by a laugh as Pete knocks his half-empty drink against Marcus’ and Kez’s lips twist into a wry smile as his empty bottle clinks against theirs.

Two hours later finds them drunk and laughing over stupid jokes and inane chat, out of alcohol and tossing around ideas that could worsen everything they’re trying to keep under wraps. An hour ago, Kez had emphatically attempted to disappear into the bed when Pete had suggested just kissing Kane to see if he kissed back or punched him.

“M’be you should just date each other,” Pete slurs now, unseen from the floor. He coughs. “That’d be hot.”

Marcus pats Kez’s stomach with a smile up at bleary blue eyes. “‘Bout it, Carey? I’d be good to you.”

Kez hums, fingers carding through Marcus’ hair. “Dunno,” he murmurs. “Kane’s hotter than you.”

“ALEX!” Marcus yelps, sitting up. He is appalled. “Kane is not hotter than me. Y’all call me Adonis for reasons! Kane is a…he’s a….he’s a worm!”

Pete bursts into hysterical laughter.

The dopey grin that pulls at Kez’s lips though is ridiculous and his eyes are glittering, gaze far away, dazed. “Those tattoos, I’d bite them all,” he murmurs, words dripping into each other. “He has a pretty mouth too.”

“Small mouth!” Pete yells below their eyeline. Something thumps onto the floor. “He’s got a small mouth, Alex, you deserve better.”

Marcus doubles over laughing.

Kez scowls, zoning back in. Righteous anger fills his eyes. “No, no, that’s not true! Kane’s mouth is hot…so pretty.”

“We get it, Kezza,” Marcus murmurs, patting his warm cheek slowly. “Kane’s mouth is hot.”

“I want Patty.” Pete mutters. He sounds like he’s pouting.

“Shut up, Foot Brush, this—isn’t about you.” Marcus waves a hand. “S’about Kez and his disparate—depes—desperate thirst for Kane’s dick.”

“Fuck you,” Kez says.

Marcus bursts into laughter. “Offer expired, Carey.”

“We are so sad,” Pete laments from the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been A Whole Minute and I do apologise about that. Several life events, about twenty-five other fics and the two I've actually posted later, I finally have a Chapter 5 update! Incredible! It may yet rain tonight. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Let me know what you thought in a comment! Please! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to hit me up at zoinis on tumblr (there's nothing on the blog just yet but message me if you want to).


End file.
